


♡

by Karios



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Other, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8029159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/pseuds/Karios
Summary: A love letter from the TARDIS about her Time Lord.





	♡

My Time Lord is old. Really old. Older than other Time Lords certainly. Some measure him in years and months and days, others in bodies and faces and cycles. They reduce him to numbers. He is angles and lines and sharpness and harshness. Peel backwards. Data and definitions. Allegories and analogies. Names. Mysteries. Adventures.

To me, he is stories. He is the child I never met, the one who trampled red grass and scaled silver trees, who stared upward at the twinkling sky and dreamed of sailing it. 

He’s the impish young man too full of big dreams to study. He is a trickster with no time yet for serious talk, and all the time in the world for his friends. 

He’s already set apart and alone, already questioning too much, and feeling too much, and being too much for a world of order and rules and careful planning. He cares little for forms and boundaries and councils of endless counseling and everything else on this too small planet. 

And in turn, it and they, care very little for him.

Except for a few. And eventually except for a certain someone that makes him both two and one half at the same time. Except for the one who teaches him to multiply, not with numbers but with love. Until they are three and then four and then generations. 

He does not know his hearts could be divided in this many ways and still grow. He does not know that hearts could be so full and still make room for more. He does not know hearts have relative dimensions.

And suddenly, the world no longer seems so small or dull or boring or familiar because he sees the way little eyes see it, when everything is exciting and new and the worlds turn with each discovery their curious minds make. It’s bigger and brighter and weird and wonderful.

Until it isn't anymore. 

Because he loses them, all of them, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes little-by-little or all-at-once. It doesn't matter how or what or when or why because they take his hearts and tear at them until all the losses blend together.

He thinks that he is old then, with his grey hair and glasses and shriveled face to match his shriveled hearts, but he is wrong. He’s only just beginning. Only just started to run.

It’s Susan journey really. At first. She is full of wonder to find, until he and I get the hang of it. So we go where she goes and stay where she stays, until she meets David and becomes two and one half and he knows, just knows that no where I could take her could ever replace that kind of journey.

And so he lets her go. But somewhere along the way we’ve fallen in love with humans. 

And there are so many humans. Kind and cruel ones, thoughtless and thoughtful, curious and disinterested, brave and fearful, but always learning and always teaching, and his heart once so empty begins to make room. For random passers-by, and assistants, and fellow travelers. They are colleagues, sparring partners, friends, on occasion, employers. Some need him, but most, they fill needs he cannot label. Some leave quickly, some leave slowly, some little-by-little...it begins to feel familiar.

He grows older and younger.

He is passed down between them and he becomes what are and they are what he isn't. He changes. Sometimes to suit them or spite them in equal measure.

He runs headlong into danger, into problems that need resolving, and days that need saving, so I learn to look. Together, we need to be needed. Meanwhile he looks for every possible way around the things he doesn't want to see.

He grows older and younger.

He is a jumble of body and face and mind and spirit. He dons a new appearance along with new rules, a new way of being. I redecorate, I adapt. We shift and shape. Plaid pants and dark hair, multicoloured patchwork and curly blond, close cropped hair and a worn leather jacket that warn off coming too close. Passions for music, sport, anything of Venus. Stark sterile white is replaced with cobbled bits and coral. The occasional fresh coat of paint. If you scrape hard enough you see the layers underneath, the shades that aren't just right anymore. Regeneration is the ultimate loss and the ultimate kindness. Without it, he’d never have room for all the scars. 

When his story is new he discards lives like crumpled pages. His recklessness extends to himself. He is a candle with too much wick to burn. So he lets them grow on and grow up. He runs faster and farther, putting as much space as he can between where he is and what he leaves behind. But somewhere along the way just like humans, age sneaks up on us both. We’re stories running out of pages, cast-offs in need of repair.

Then each story is more precious, each life in need of preservation, each death a sacrifice. Regenerations become carefully planned, ardently crafted according to his desires.

He is the Doctor first and foremost because he chose it. That word is chocked full of his promises and aspirations. But he is more. The Legend, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, the magic man, the ever-traveller, the reluctant warrior, even the unwitting lover. Father, Grandfather, Protector, Savior, Caretaker, Best Friend. But also Destroyer, Murderer, World-Ender, Arch-Enemy. He is a matter of perspective, and his eyes young or old remained focused on the dark between the points of light.

He is alone, and losses hit him harder than ever. My hardest and most favorite duty is to pass him into a new pair of hands. Onto someone who will view him as both the magic and the man. Hands happy to save the savior and who will claw their way into his crowded hearts. Someone to treasure my very old Time Lord is out there. Someone to inherit all that he is and pass him on again.

With love I search.

**Author's Note:**

> For the bingo square Antique and Heirloom. Considering a series, if anyone would be interested in reading more of these.


End file.
